it were committed by Constance or William, either alone or by both of them, an act of revenge against their father for turning his attention to the children of his second marriage, of whom Francis was his reported favourite. Press excitement At the Assizes, Constance Kent pleaded guilty, and her plea was accepted so that Wagner was not again called. The position that he assumed before the magistrates caused much public debate in the press. There was considerable expression of public indignation that it should have been suggested that he could have any right as against the state to withhold evidence on the ground that he had put forward. The indignation seems to have been largely directed against the assumption that sacramental confession was known to the Church of England. Parliamentary comment Questions were asked in both Houses of Parliament. In the House of Lords, Lord Westbury, the Lord Chancellor, in reply to the Marquess of Westmeath, stated that: Lord Westbury stated that it appeared that an order for committal for contempt of court had in fact been made against Wagner. If that is so, it was not enforced. On the same occasion, Lord Chelmsford, a previous Lord Chancellor, stated that the law was clear that Wagner had no privilege at all to withhold facts which came to his knowledge in confession. Lord Westmeath said that there had been two recent cases, one being the case of a priest in Scotland, who, on refusing to give evidence, had been committed to prison. As to this case, Lord Westmeath stated that, upon an application for the priest's release being made to the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, the latter had replied that if he were to remit the sentence without an admission of error on the part of the Catholic priest and without an assurance on his part that he would not again in a similar case adopt the same course, he (the Home Secretary) would be giving a sanction to the assumption of a privilege by ministers of every denomination which, he was advised, they could not claim. The second case was R v Hay. Lord Westbury's statement in the House of Lords drew a protest from Henry Phillpotts, the Bishop of Exeter, who wrote to him a letter strongly maintaining the privilege which had been claimed by Wagner. The bishop argued that the canon law on the subject had